The Meaning of White
by Enabeans
Summary: A crossover Bleach and The Question fiction. COMPLETE.


_This story was written for my lovely Rama, for the prompt: 'Ukitake/Question - something to do with winter and snow'. It's set in the livejournal roleplay 'Paradisa' and is a crossover fiction for The Question and Ukitake Jyuushiro._

**The Meaning of White**

White had always meant snow. White had always meant winter and cold. White had always meant an absence of life and an unforgiving world. Charlie had never been fond of white.

**One**

The first year the snow had fallen in a soft flurry onto the ground outside the beautiful castle, coating the once verdant grass and turning the world into a completely different place. It had come late that year, not arriving until far into December when the residents had begun to believe it wasn't going to come at all. It was one of the things Charlie liked about this strange new world – it was ever changing, unpredictable, even the seasons not following a set pattern. It was the perfect place to hide if he needed to, the perfect place to camouflage his own inconsistencies and blend in.

The deep unbroken white reminded him of a childhood only glimpsed in storybooks, it seemed magical and pure... somehow. Flights of fancy he tutted to himself, as he dressed in his usual smart clothes for the day. Silly imaginings born from a childhood in Hub City where the snow that had fallen was quickly turned into dirty slush.

Yet he could not stop himself associating the snow with that innocence lost. Wade would have laughed at him for reading too much into the weather, but when a man always looked for meaning inside himself without success, he couldn't help but look for it elsewhere as well.

* * *

The second year the snow fell; it brought with it a feeling of restless discontent. It was no longer a reminder of innocence, now it was a herald of imprisonment. A sign of a whole year in this captivity, in a cage that was no longer as appealing as it had once been.

What had seemed a perfect place to hide himself, had turned out to be the exact opposite. In a world where everything else changed at whim, the people had learned to watch sharply for it in those around them. His friends pushed further at his boundaries, and a man that had been a friend one day could be an enemy the next.

It would be easier if he could retreat from them into an almost hermit like existence... caring about them meant he would just end up hurting them or losing them one day, and he wasn't strong enough to bare that.

Yet his friends refused to accept that situation, and as much as he ran and tried to tell them over and over that he was not a good man, they wouldn't listen. It was infuriating, and the smell of tea had slowly become synonymous with an odd mixture of dread and peace that he didn't truly understand himself.

* * *

The snow in the third year was bitter. The cold mirroring the emotions in Charlie's head and heart, a frightened happiness that made the world lurch beneath him. Now the cold was the bringer of fear, the moment the weather turned he found himself straining his hearing for the first hint of a rasped breath or the sound of muffled coughing.

The white of the snow was no longer pure, but stained now with red.

Red with the blood he had spilled that year, red with the blood his friends had shed too often because of a malicious world that seemed to delight in suffering, red with the frothing life at the lips of someone who had slowly become central to his life here. When had that happened? He wasn't sure... he knew he had resisted it every step of the way, and now it had happened he guarded the feelings jealously and secretively even from those he should share them with openly.

* * *

**Two**

The first year when the snow fell so deeply, Ukitake was enchanted by it. In the long years of his life in Seireitei, the weather had so rarely even been cold enough for a frost, let alone for snow to fall and lay this thickly.

It delighted him in an almost childish way to feel his waraji crunch and sink as he walked, to look back and see a line of only his footprints leading back where he had been. It became a favourite winter pass-time to sit with a cup of steaming tea at his window in one of the tall towers and watch the moving specks of colour against the vast backdrop of white.

Elektra said he was too easily amused, and didn't he realize snow was a nightmare to do battle in as it sapped the strength and slowed reaction time. He merely smiled in response... if the need to do battle came he would be ready, but until then he would enjoy the snow in peace.

* * *

The second year he barely noticed the snow arrive, too preoccupied with the various troubles and joys of the friends he had made. If he marked it at all as a passing of time, he would only give a small smile to himself before carrying on.

A whole year here, it was a blessing far more than a curse and he was grateful for every second. When the time came for him to return home, he would do so gladly and fall into his duties with his whole heart, but while he remained here he would be thankful for each extra day he was given with the friends who had become like family to him.

As he presented yet another cup of tea to a familiar red-haired man, his face set in a patient look, he settled once more into silence to wait for Charlie to reach that point where his troubles came pouring out.

* * *

The third year brought with it endless discussions of weakness and pride, arguments that lasted days with the man who he had somehow come to love. A strange love, one he had certainly not seen coming until it had sprung on him with a rather clumsy kiss under the mistletoe – castle induced, but yet not as awkward as others.

Charlie seemed nervous with that word, almost frightened of what was growing between them and it made him fret more with each silly cold that assailed Ukitake's lungs. It was both endearing and infuriating at once, just like the man himself.

* * *

**Three**

The fourth year winter came swiftly, the snow falling in a whirling blizzard overnight to show a world blanketed in white to those waking the next day.

But for the first time for both men, the snow went unnoticed outside the window. The two bodies curled in a bed where there had only been one before, sharing their warmth and sleeping tangled in one another's limbs peacefully.

Waking slowly in the cold of the morning, Charlie found his nose buried in the hair of his lover, the realization that he shared a room with the shinigami breaking over him anew as it did each day they woke up side by side.

His fingers curled slightly in long strands of soft white, tugging just enough to reaffirm the man beside him was real without waking him, his lips turning upwards into a smile.

* * *

White had always meant snow. White had always meant winter and cold. White had always meant an absence of life and an unforgiving world. Charlie had never been fond of white.

Now, white meant warmth. White meant the sight of a smile that never dimmed and the constant companion. White meant a world where he had finally found a home after long years of searching. On reflection, Charlie was very fond of white.


End file.
